Strike on survey companies.

[conehead 4]

I think it's high time we protest and go on strike with all survey companies,. We want a raise.when. We start a survey using our time, and our devises we should be paid 50 cents for  each survey attempt and if the companies disqualify us they should be hold accountable to paying us members who work hard being a member. And I think we should be paid by the minute. 25 cents a minute. What do you say people, should we go on STRIKE. I believe we should..

[Leefall 33]

Couldn't agree with you more. Just completed a 30 minute survey estimated at 5 minutes for Opinion Outpost for a measly 3 points. Can't wait to reach payout and discontinue.They used to be excellent, what's happened to them?   Also, noticing other survey companies rewarding less points and consistently  underestimate minutes needed, and prelims are surveys in disguise for no rewards.. Pathetic. The only good one is Pinecone. They are legitimate, with $3 per  survey. I give them my best. 

[dawn_b_adams 1,148]

I hear you too! Man, if I got paid 50 cents for every survey I attempted, I’d be making $15-$20 a day easily! I get DQ’d from so many surveys. It would be a total dream to get paid 25 cents a minute. That way if I took a 30 minute survey, I’d get $7.50. Yeah, that would be awesome, but just a dream there. I’m lucky if I can get 5 cents a minute half the time. I agree with you on misleading estimated times of completion. I was working one today that was supposed to be 13 minutes. Well, 20 minutes in, I was still working on it, very monotonous, and then I got all the way to the end, and it said it had enough responses from my demographics and I got nothing! I was livid. 

[schludermann 291]

I don't think a strike would be effective. Because the turnover these survey companies have is just too much and they often claim millions of members. So a 100 or thousand strikers would not be noticed. There's no easy way for a person to affect these survey companies and they know it. To be noticed, you have to be entrepreneurial,  think bigger and use leverage. I've use the professional organizations like MRS, ESOMAR and others to send complaints, so that's a letter writing campaign.  If you get the attention of management this way, it's usually upper level. You may also have to make contacts at the state level regulatory, like for the survey lotteries and drawings, those are regulated by gaming laws. However, I doubt that many of the people doing surveys think it's worth the effort, you would like to be an activist to pursue this course. Perhaps the best way to gain a following would be to find a journalist that covers surveying, at least a couple of articles written and attached to a news organization and persuade the person that there's a story here. Another thing that can be done is write survey reviews at SiteJabber.com, at least there they don't throttle you for being accused of "griping".

[lunastargazer 125]

I've alluded to this on other posts, I only have three survey companies I use and I'm about ready to fire 2 of them. I don't think it's survey burnout, I think I'm just tired of being taken advantage of. And it's my fault, I signed up for it.

Although here lately if compensation for a survey is laughable, I just exit out. I don't get the DQ but I'm not wasting my time to be DQ'd and get a nickel.  Like I said earlier I belong to Google Rewards surveys, which are short and sweet. They always pay at least a dime and I can always rent a movie on Google Play or buy a book. 

Survey companies do this because they have plenty of survey takers like myself who are willing to complete surveys for a pittance. I guess I'm sick of being used. I'm more mad at myself than the companies.

[mikedorb 47]

There seems to be two issues with a lot of survey companies. One is qualifying for surveys. With some panels it is very difficult if not impossible. The other problem is a lot of survey panels pay very little for completing a survey that takes a lot of time. 25 cents for a 20 or 30 minute survey is not good. Inbox Dollars in particular does this. Most of their surveys are 25 cents and we are not talking 5 or 10 minute surveys for the most part. Once in a while I can complete a survey that pays decently but not often. I can complete surveys with them which is good but it takes completing a lot of surveys to get to 30.00 so I can cash out. I still can cash out but it takes longer than it used to.  

Remember these survey companies are in business to make money. There is no doubt that overall the payouts are not as good as they were a few years ago. And I don't think it is my imagination.  

[schludermann 291]

16 hours ago, mikedorb said:

There seems to be two issues with a lot of survey companies. One is qualifying for surveys. With some panels it is very difficult if not impossible. The other problem is a lot of survey panels pay very little for completing a survey that takes a lot of time. 25 cents for a 20 or 30 minute survey is not good. Inbox Dollars in particular does this. Most of their surveys are 25 cents and we are not talking 5 or 10 minute surveys for the most part. Once in a while I can complete a survey that pays decently but not often. I can complete surveys with them which is good but it takes completing a lot of surveys to get to 30.00 so I can cash out. I still can cash out but it takes longer than it used to.  

Remember these survey companies are in business to make money. There is no doubt that overall the payouts are not as good as they were a few years ago. And I don't think it is my imagination.  

Another practice that serious dilutes the value of completing surveys is the near universal deployment of routers and even routers stacked on routers.  A panelist could easily be engaged in back-to-back routers for a duration longer than the survey lead that was fielded in the email or from a website.  In my exchanges with panels particularly prone to this, support denies using routers or allowing clients to use routers. I think panels are all on board with this because when I challenge the ethical nature of offering a survey that only goes to a router, and that that is unethical, the scripted response is that "this is being done for your benefit", so much for having a company make decisions for the poor panelist. Perhaps that is why panels have so many cheats that can't answer legitimately, they don't want people to think.  So, this is either deceit or incompetence because it happens way too often, unless these panels have a private dictionary with different definitions for words. I think if panels are going to subject panelists to routers, they should be transparent and just state so when providing an opportunity.  Once a long while ago, with Branded/Mintvine I made this suggestion to support and a short while later the opportunity link on the dashboard included a note that there maybe a series of qualifying questionnaires and not a survey. This optimization did not survive the branded "Improvements" last year.